Ranking Nico Iamaleava's 2024 Performances: #10 Florida

Nico Iamaleava is one of the largest topics of conversation in college football ahead of his redshirt sophomore season with the UCLA Bruins.

After a stellar redshirt freshman season with the Tennessee Volunteers that led them to their first ever College Football Playoff appearance, Iamaleava entered the transfer portal after a NIL dispute that was largely publicized and turned him into one of the most polarizing figures in college football.

He finished last season leading the Vols to a 10-3 record and passed for 2,616 yards, 19 touchdowns and five interceptions on 63.8% (213-334) completion percentage. With that being said, let's rank Iamaleava's best performances of the season, moving onto No. 10 -- Oct. 12 vs. Florida.

This is Iamaleava's first win of this series and the last of three games we've covered where he didn't score a single passing or rushing touchdown. The other two games in which he didn't score at all were a 19-14 loss to Arkansas the week before playing the Gators, and their 31-17 loss to Georgia in November.

This 23-17 overtime win against the Gators, though, was one of Iamaleava's worst games of the season. He finished with 169 passing yards on 16-for-26 (61.5%) completions with one rushing yard (season low) on just eight carries. He had a 108.4 passer rating and a 25.5 ESPN Adjusted QBR Rating, the lowest of the entire season for Iamaleava.

Tennessee was outscored 10-0 until midway through the third quarter before the Vols scored 17 unanswered points to take the lead. Florida answered back with a touchdown of its own to send it to overtime.

Volunteers running back Dylan Sampson carried the team on his back in this matchup, scoring all three of their touchdowns and rushing for 112 yards on 27 carries. Tennessee kicker Max Gilbert had a field goal in the third quarter as well to round out their scoring in the game.

The overtime, game-winning drive started with a three-yard pass from Iamaleava to Vols tight end Holden States, followed by an eight-yard rush from Sampson and an 11-yard pass to Dont'e Thornton Jr. Sampson then took Tennessee home with a win on two more rushes up the middle and into the touchdown.

This was another game where Sampson carried Tennessee's offense as Iamaleava was struggling to get anything going. But, as we've said before, Iamaleava still put together a couple of solid drives down the field to get the Vols in scoring position.